rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

it's been really good inspiration for things to read!

those look like books i could love.

i really liked Destiny Doll by Simak. all my fave SF books make me sad. so many cool ideas and moments in a slim paperback. can't really ask much more from fiction or art.

gonna read frederik pohl's The Man Who Ate The World story collection next. then dig into some of the non-SF paperbacks i brought home yesterday. maybe alternate SF/non/SF/non...i'm kinda comfortable reading nothing but space operas at this point in my life. reality is a drag. i learn more and think more reading sci-fi then i do most straight lit these days.

at the thrift store, they had tons of those mercenary/doomsday/road warrior paperbacks and i was SO tempted to buy a bunch of them even though i know they are mostly terrible. i do love the IDEA of the genre though. "Jake Callahan survived World War III and warily joined a resistance movement hidden in the mountains of what was once Colorado, but would he be able to outlive the ultimate test of his formidable Navy SEALs skills..."

okay, i made that quote up, but that's kinda how they all go.

the main problem with them, despite the prose quality, is they often have truly scary political egenda, KKK-style

xpost Farnham's Freehold is a proto-survivalist saga, re US vs USSR boom-boom, but not KKK--in the context of 60s Heinlein, and along w xpost Glroy Road maybe his peak, though Stranger In A Strange Land (not as good) is where I got off the electric star-spangled bus, man. The kind yall are talking about I first and last was aware of in late 70s/early 80s, when Wal-Mart landed in my Granny's town, up in the hills. When the Soviet Union caved in, the subgenre did too, as a Wal-Mart-acceptable thang (Wal-Mart of course *was* the mainstream by then). Went more underground/indie, with overt, foregrounded anti-ZOG, how-to for mental militias. Before that, there was at least one movie vs. Soviet occupation, Red Dawn, created by John Milius, I think. Also did The Wind And The Lion and some of the Apocalypse Now drafts. Survivalism's also on "reality" TV, in terms of building and stocking shelters. target practice, big pronouncements etc-- w.carefully edited sociopolitical explications re Obamafication and beyond.

survivor etc. seem more occupied with saying ALLIANCE a million times than pushing any survivalist agenda

No, this is a more recent trend, and on maybe Nat Geo, the History Channel? Flicking past 'em, I don't watch much

Has anybody out there read Star Trek books by big name authors? Library's got a trilogy by KW Jeter, orig noted for Dr. Adder, also note that link of him reading steampunk version of "The Red Shoes" upthread. And they've got at least one Trek title by Greg Bear (plus a discard of his Forge of God, is that good? Only Bear novel I've read was Blood Music, good skewering on SF's New Age tendencies)

Forge of God is decent, apocalypse via evil alien fuckheads but not taking the usual route of massive militaristic spaceship invasion, the aliens' modus operandi and motivation is rather more inscrutable and even wtf in places iirc.

Wouldn't touch a star trek novelisation with a ten foot bat'leth.

Yeah that's Damon Knight's notion, his aliens are alien, though so far most of his evil fuckheads are human, in the 50s stories I've been reading. Don't think Jeter's Trek trilogy is novelization, just authorized use of ST characters/elements, might be wrong though.

I really liked Forge of God.

I know James Blish wrote some well-regarded Trek novels, but yeah, would not read a Star Trek/Wars novel no matter who wrote it.

i remember exactly where i was when i first saw this on sale. shopwell. brookfield, ct.

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/1/1a/SOTME_Cover.jpg

i never read it. loved the cover though.

i have a ton of star trek paperbacks in my store. they are all a dollar and nobody ever buys them and they all look terrible.

they don't even try to come up with covers either. just slap some big heads on the front and call it a day.

http://retrobookshop.com/images/products/display/103969.jpg

think this is the only sf moving picture franchise novel tie-in i have ever read, as a callow youth:

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20050501181417/starwars/images/thumb/6/6b/Lost_Legacy_Cover.jpg/250px-Lost_Legacy_Cover.jpg

i still remember the twist - the lost legacy aka treasure they are seeking turns out to be a stockpile of centuries obsolete & worthless technology.

spoilers!

that's not a bad twist, considering

I know James Blish wrote some well-regarded Trek novels, but yeah, would not read a Star Trek/Wars novel no matter who wrote it.

he wrote umpteen (well, twelve) volumes of what were mainly just prose renderings of the episodes, it's the saddest piece of paycheck work imaginable

he did write one novel in 1970 which i have never read. it was called spock must die!

spock must kiss the sky!

http://latimesherocomplex.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/leonard-nimoy-and-jimi-hendrix.jpg?w=600&h=370

Cool, is that from the tour where the Experience opened for the Monkees? I don't know, but guess some of the little girls understood both. Looking for the bootleg where they all back Spock. I told yall wrong, Jeter's Bounty Hunter Triology is Star Wars as hell, def not Star Trek. The central character is hired by one of Darth Vader's colleagues, Prince Xinth or something like that, to turn members of the Bounty Hunters Guild against each other. But then he realizes he's being more of an evil tool than a cunning contractor. But it's all bad, cause the Prince is looking fwd like a kid to Christmas: to when the very qualities which have brought the B H so far so far will soon fuck him up. Read a few pages of volume I, very promising tough toy opening, covering a lot of stinky desert ground. I gather these vols got mixed reviews, esp the following, but I kinda like the cover
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TAWO1jZg5XY/TZSCgkujMoI/AAAAAAAAAA8/NGwLbRtImCE/s1600/untitled.bmp

Mainly I identify with the guy in the hood, his look. Jeter also wrote a couple of books based on Blade Runner.

is Alan Dean Foster good? Oh, saw another xpost Greg Bear library discard, Hull Zero Three, how is that one?

having said would not read a Star Trek/Wars novel no matter who wrote it.. i have to admit to having read a couple of Doctor Who spinoff novels in the past.

I liked the sound of Hull Zero Three but Christopher Priest was less than complimentary in his fulmination against the Arthur C Clarke award nominees this year: "The paragraphs are short, to suit the expected attention-span of the reader. The important words are in italics. Have we lived and fought in vain?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/29/arthur-c-clarke-award-christopher-priest

To be fair, Hull Zero Three was quite good. Not 'Blood Music' or 'Eon' good, but still good.

Good that the Priest thing incl other points of view I'll check out some of the books attacked and praised, but, however good or band this particular book is, can't see why the past can't be a legit resource for speculation, long as it's not just reflex retro:
Drew Magary's The End Specialist? "Speculative fiction is for the present, on the cutting edge, looking forward, not back.
Also, could we give "cutting edge" a vacation?

I know James Blish wrote some well-regarded Trek novels, but yeah, would not read a Star Trek/Wars novel no matter who wrote it.

he wrote umpteen (well, twelve) volumes of what were mainly just prose renderings of the episodes, it's the saddest piece of paycheck work imaginable

he did write one novel in 1970 which i have never read. it was called spock must die!

― thomp, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:19 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read these books over and over when I was a kid, probably knew them better than the actual episodes. I probably read Spock Must Die! too.

The Klingon Empire manages to imprison the Organians and begin another war with the Federation. Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise find themselves far behind enemy lines.
Scotty has figured out a way to use tachyons to send a duplicate of Mr. Spock to Organia via a souped-up transporter beam, without having to travel through Klingon space, but something has gone terribly wrong. As a result, there are now two Mr. Spocks. Eventually, one of them turns out to be an evil saboteur and has to be destroyed... but which one?
The novel is notable for an elementary public exposure of tachyon theory.
For a similar duplication of Captain Kirk, see the Original Series episode "The Enemy Within".

It's not ringing any bells I have to say.

Currently reading : Rite Of Passage by Alexei Panshin, shaping up pretty well for a random charity shop purchase.

i picked up the patternist series (in one volume) by octavia butler...have not had much time to read it yet but from the first few chapters i can tell that i am going to love this.

Yep, good series. Here's James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel on the Nebula Awards,with some points I hadn't thought of:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/nebula-awards_n_1545655.html?ref=books

I probably read Spock Must Die! too.

I know I did. Not my finest hour.

Yeah that's Damon Knight's notion, his aliens are alien

"Stranger Station"!

le guin off broadway!

http://www.untitledtheater.com/UTC61/Shows/Entries/2012/6/6_The_Lathe_of_Heaven.html

oh man now i want to start a sci-fi theatre company...so many possiblities.

Reminds me, came across "R.U.R" in an sf anthology at the library, better read it. Wonder how stageworthy it is?

xpost Man, they already adapted Cat's Cradle and Do Androids...?! Saw The Lathe Of Heaven commissioned by PBS in the 70s, wonder it's on DVD

oh yeah here
http://images.mymovies.ge/t/p/w1280/orYrry7oWb0wQTav6E6Mq2Po3ij.jpg

voila

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofwNTrlyY5I

I don't think I'm reader enough for this

this is so great:

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/05/23/genre-fiction-is-disruptive-technology/

Unjustly Neglected Works Of Science Fiction: http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/61/unjustneglect61.htm

(of course, none of you are neglecting them)

i read that han solo and the lost legacy novel too it was pretty bomb

i read that at the same age at which i became intensely engaged with the badlands of hark

http://www.j-topia.com/online_games/badlands/

re: unjustly neglected works

Roger Bozzetto

[...]

2. E.A. van Vogt: The Weapon Shop of Isher and The Weapon Makers

fuck off libertarians

strange misunderstanding of "neglected" in some of those lists. oh yeah tarkovsky's stalker, that long-forgotten relic.

william burroughs!

other obscure, little-known classics: 'dune,' robert a. heinlein, murakami.

admittedly it's a) unjustly neglected by SF critics and scholars; and ii) in 1992 before the great panoptical democratising rubbish-heap trawling machine that is the interwebs.

Ha, exactly

i think its fair to say that the values of the original 'dune' stood some chance of being lost to sight in 1992, when the most recent dune-based memory was the fourth sequel herbert had rushed to completion before his death

this is an interesting set of reading lists imo

i mean, thx james

now i am going to go and to play 'the badlands of hark' all morning